


Hotel California

by Reis_Asher



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Altered Items, Attempt at Humor, Cunnilingus, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, Oceanview Motel, One Shot, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Spoilers, There Is Only One Bed, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 13:49:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20565392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: When a Bureau agent steals an Altered Item and flees with it to the Oceanview Motel, Jesse Faden and Emily Pope have to go and retrieve it. However, things go wrong and they find themselves trapped in an inter-dimensional motel room with no escape and only their unspoken feelings and desires for company...





	Hotel California

**Author's Note:**

> I beat the game and I wrote this to celebrate the unexplored romantic tension between Jesse and Pope. This game was a breath of fresh air, it was nice to have two women who weren't shoehorned into some soulless, boring het romance subplot.
> 
> There's some dumb humor in here, a bunch of references to canon, some barebones plot, and some sex of course. Enjoy this shameless act of self-indulgence.
> 
> **This will spoil endgame stuff, so go play the game first!**

"You've gotta be kidding me," Jesse cursed, as the rogue agent tugged the light cord for the third time and vanished from existence. "We've got to get the Holy Toaster back. If Agent Wilson uses it in the Oceanview Motel, there's no telling what might happen."

Emily Pope paged through several documents on her clipboard. "Intel says the Holy Toaster produces toast with the image of Jesus Christ burnt into it. It's a powerful Altered Item that demands worship. The Bureau purchased it from a museum in Las Vegas a few years ago."

"I'm going in." Jesse tightened her grip on the Service Weapon. "If I don't come back, I want you to become the next Director."

"I'm pretty sure that's up to the Board." Pope raised an eyebrow, a smile crossing her face. "Though I'm flattered you have so much faith in me, Jesse, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint. I'm coming with you." She reached for the light cord. "The rule of threes applies as usual. Let's pull it together."

Jesse closed her hand around Pope's. Emily's skin was soft, her fingers long and slender. They pulled down on the light cord together. _One. Two. Three._

The world around them vanished.

***

The Oceanview Motel was always a calm and quiet place. It was hard to believe this bland motel was a portal to other dimensions, though Jesse was pretty sure it existed in normal space. She'd heard people knocking on the front door one time, just ordinary folks looking for a place to stay. The Oceanview didn't have vacancies, however—at least not for tourists. A pleasant muzak tune blared from a radio behind the front desk, filling the oppressive silence that spoke of the power this building held.

"Quite a place," Pope said. "Feels a lot like the Oldest House. So… do what you do here, I guess."

"It is a Place Of Power." Jesse reached forward and rang the bell. The first door on the left swung open. She led the way into the tiny motel room. Pope followed closely behind her.

She heard the bell ring another time and the door swung shut.

"Oh, shit!" Jesse swore. She looked around the room in hopes of finding something she needed to do to open the door, but she knew in her heart of hearts that the door had been closed from the outside.

"What just happened?" Pope asked.

"We got played by our friend with the toaster," Jesse explained. "She must have rang the bell and closed the door. We now exist in another dimension outside the Oceanview. I don't think smashing the window is going to cut it. We could find ourselves anywhere."

"So we're stuck here." Pope sat down on the edge of the bed. "Great."

"At least until Wilson opens the door." Jesse tried banging on the door. "Agent Wilson, if you're out there, open up! We need the Altered Item back before it hurts someone."

"I'm gonna guess she can't hear us." Pope sighed. "We could be here a long time. Well, I can think of worse people to spend eternity with."

"We're not staying here, Emily, so don't get too comfortable." Jesse started playing with the objects in the room. The radio emitted only static. The painting seemed like a perfectly normal print of a rustic scene, and there were no monsters under the bed. Everything about the room screamed of a normal motel room, and Jesse couldn't help but wonder if they had been transported back into normal space. Still, she was hoping they could find a way back home that didn't involve being stuck in the middle of Butte, Montana. The Bureau still had a Hiss problem and the lockdown would make getting back in extremely difficult.

"Emily, now is it?" Pope smiled. "I'm starting to think you like me, Jesse."

"I do like you," Jesse said. She opened the radio's battery compartment to find it was hissing static without the need for an energy source. Once, that might have seemed odd, but she'd seen far stranger things ever since that day in Ordinary with the Slide Projector that a radio running without batteries seemed like the least of her concerns.

"As the Director, or as a friend?" Pope asked. She looked down at her clipboard, staring at the heavily redacted file in an obvious attempt to avoid eye contact with Jesse.

Jesse put the radio down on the table so carefully it might have been an Altered Item itself. "Both, actually." She hadn't thought too much about it in the months since she'd been installed as Director. The Board always had her busy rooting out the Hiss and dealing with other problems as they saw fit. Now and then she still took care of janitorial work like she was Ahti's assistant.

Perhaps, in a sense, this was a vacation of sorts. If Ahti could take one underneath the foundation of the Oldest House, why couldn't she enjoy a little company at the Oceanview Motel and Casino? Well, just the motel part, and with the one person she hated to admit was her only friend at the moment, but it was a getaway nonetheless.

"That's no answer at all," Pope said, yawning loudly. Jesse had to admit she was exhausted, too. Sleep came fitfully these days, often disturbed by urgent matters that needed attending to immediately. That and the Board didn't respect the concept of time at all. The Hotline was better than any alarm clock, because it always seemed to ring at two in the morning. Sometimes she wondered if the Board was just trying to keep her on her toes. Or tired. Malleable.

_We Like/Tolerate you_

Tolerate. Jesse was, in the end, the Director only because the Board allowed it. If she screwed up, perhaps they'd find a replacement. Maybe Dylan would wake up from his coma and they'd decide he was the better candidate after all.

Pope broke through her reverie. "You're tired too. Let's get some sleep, Jesse. We can think about what to do once we've rested. We might be able to contact someone inside the Bureau, get some agents up here."

"Right." The bed looked really small once Pope climbed into it, though Jesse was glad she kept her clothes on, at least. The sunlight outside was fading and it was getting pretty cold in the room. She'd have no choice but to get under the blanket.

With Pope.

She almost laughed at herself. There was an interdimensional resonance living inside her, and she was the Director of the Bureau of Control, but she was scared about sleeping in a bed with another woman? She slipped off her shoes and leather jacket, climbing into bed with Pope. This didn't have to be weird unless she made it weird.

Problem was, she very much wanted to make it weird. Being the Director was lonely. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to find at the Bureau of Control, but she'd hoped to leave the building with her brother in tow. Now he was in a coma and she had… Just Pope, mostly. She didn't see a lot of Marshall or Arish, and Langston pretty much lived down in Containment. So much for Trench's management team.

It also wasn't too hard to see Pope was into her. That had been obvious from the outset. At first Jesse had thought she was just starstruck by the new Director, but as they'd grown closer it had become more than that. Now Pope was here on fieldwork because of her. Stuck in a motel room they might never leave. She couldn't say she'd expected this trip to turn into Hotel California.

Jesse wondered what the Board's policy was on office romance.

"You okay, Jesse?" Pope asked. She lay on her side facing Jesse while Jesse stared at the ceiling, lost in her thoughts. "Sorry if this is awkward. We'll get out of here tomorrow."

"I'm sure we will. Whatever Wilson's motivation was for stealing the toaster, I doubt it was malicious enough to warrant killing the Director and the Head of Research. She'll be back when she's done what she wants to do with it. Probably make some toast that'll guarantee she becomes an Internet sensation. Clearly she's been working at the Bureau too long: that ship sailed years ago."

"That's assuming the toaster doesn't kill her," Pope pointed out. "Didn't you cleanse some items with a creature called the Former in them?"

"Don't remind me," Jesse said. "The Board seems to think that's been taken care of."

"Let's hope so."

They lay in silence for a few more moments. Jesse was sure she could hear trucks passing by. The world was right outside their window. The real world. Jesse hadn't been outside since the day she'd stepped into the Oldest House. The lockdown prohibited anyone from leaving. New York City was right outside the front door, but they couldn't risk letting the Hiss out into the world.

Suddenly, she really wanted a burger. Something from a fast food chain, as opposed to the ones they had at the Bureau cafeteria wrapped in paper that said BURGER on it in bold, black lettering. No golden arches in the Bureau, or they might end up with an Altered Item. A burger powerful enough to kill. Well, some people would consider that fitting.

"You almost sound like you want to be stuck here," Jesse pointed out.

"It's kinda peaceful, isn't it? Far away from Altered Items, reports, and Hiss." Pope sighed. "I bet I could even take my HRA off here. Can you imagine? It's such a bitch to shower wearing this thing."

Jesse chuckled. "I'll bet. Hey, if you wanna try it, be my guest. If you feel the Hiss creeping in, just let me know. I'll make sure you get it back on in time."

Pope sat up, unclasping the HRA. Jesse helped her with the straps, sliding it off her body. They were so close, Jesse's hands lingering on Pope's shoulders where the straps had been moments before.

"Feels good," Pope said, and Jesse wasn't sure if she meant the HRA being off or Jesse's hands on her clothed body.

"No Hiss voices?" Jesse asked. Pope's ear was so close she barely had to whisper into it.

"Nope. Nothing." Pope made no effort to get away from Jesse's touch. In fact, she leaned back into it, and Jesse slid her hands down Pope's back and around her waist.

When Pope turned her head to capture Jesse's lips in a tentative kiss, Jesse wasn't about to say no. She hadn't kissed… well, anyone, really, unless you counted 'Nosebleed' Neil back in Ordinary, who'd wanted to know if he was really gay or not. Now he was dead—or at least trapped in another dimension, where it was unlikely anyone knew or cared about the sexuality he'd been bullied all those years for.

Ironic, really, that she should find herself in the arms of another woman. Perhaps that awkward teen kiss had told her as much as it had Neil. This kiss was nothing like that. This was warm, comforting. Wanted, not something she suffered through for the sake of a friend. She opened her mouth, inviting Pope in as a sudden hunger seemed to burn her up from the inside.

Well, it wasn't like she could watch porn on her office computer. Internet access was extremely limited in the Bureau. She hadn't even had time to think about her needs, and now here they were, smacking her hard across the face. Her hands seemed to have a mind of their own, cupping Pope's breasts as the kiss grew deeper and more fierce. Sucking her in like the Slide Projector had, consuming her.

Her hands slid down to Pope's belt before she could even think about what she was doing. She wasn't the Director at this moment. She was just a woman with wants and needs, a human vessel for desires that had been ignored a long time.

Pope didn't push her away. Perhaps she needed this as much as Jesse did. Pope worked on the buttons of her blouse, shedding it and unclasping her bra like it was an emergency. Jesse followed suit, urgency overriding the desire to be slow and intimate about all this. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off her jeans, followed by her shirt, bra, and panties.

"Wow." Pope smiled. "I feel like I'm way out of my league."

"Don't be silly," Jesse said, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. She blushed, feeling like a teenager. She'd never done this before, and now she realized she had no idea what to do. She was the Director of the Bureau of Control, and a 28-year-old-virgin to boot.

The Board had to be laughing.

"Jesse, are you all right?" Pope's concerned eyes bored into her, and Jesse realized self-consciousness went both ways.

"Yeah, of course. It's just… I'm the Director, but I've… not exactly had the chance to do this before. My life's been… pretty much set on finding my brother since the Bureau took him. I haven't had time for romance, and now…"

"Shit, I'm rushing things," Pope cursed. "I'm sorry. I forget that I've been into you for months whereas you're just figuring all this out now." She looked down at her feet. "This was a bad idea anyway. You're my boss, for fuck's sake. The Director. People are gonna start talking about my promotion. That I only got clearance because—"

"Shh." Jesse found her courage and cut Pope off at the pass, pulling her into a long, slow kiss. The sensation of Pope's soft skin against hers was intoxicating, the shape of her body fitting with Jesse's as they kissed. They parted for air, gasping in breaths of motel room air, vaguely scented with stale cigarettes and coffee.

A pause. Jesse didn't know what to do again. Stuck at an impasse. She was the Director. She had to make a decision.

Or maybe, just this once, she could delegate the task to someone who knew more than her in this field.

"Show me," Jesse whispered into Pope's ear.

"All right." Pope smiled as she eased Jesse down onto the bed. She spread Jesse's legs, taking a good look between them, the hunger in her eyes plain to see. It was that same look Pope got when she talked about the things she was interested in, her own special interests and tangents.

Of which pleasuring another woman was _definitely_ one of them.

Pope lifted one of Jesse's legs and nestled herself between them. She parted Jesse's legs wider, running an experimental finger over her slit. Jesse shivered at the whisper of a touch, wanting so much more.

She wasn't disappointed when Pope lowered her head and ran her tongue up the length of Jesse's slit. She looked up at Jesse with longing eyes, begging for permission. Jesse nodded. Pope dived in, licking and sucking at Jesse's pussy. Jesse gasped, pleasure flooding through her. She grabbed her own breasts, playing with her pert, sensitive nipples as Pope devoured her. There were no words in Jesse's mind, no Altered Items to think about, not even Polaris, who'd thankfully gone quiet for the moment, leaving Jesse and Pope to it.

"Emily… fuck!" Pope's tongue flicked over Jesse's clitoris, paying it special attention as Jesse arched her back. She let go of her breasts and buried her fingers in Pope's short hair, caressing it as Pope led her to climax. Jesse cried out as she came, gripping the sheets as Pope continued to punish her overstimulated clit past the point of climax. Jesse wondered if she'd be able to orgasm again, but Pope pulled away, her lips glistening with Jesse's wetness. She came to lay down beside Jesse on the bed.

"So? How was it? A researcher wants to know the result of her tests," Pope teased.

"It was… incredible." Jesse leaned in to kiss Pope, tasting herself on the other woman's lips. "I want to touch you."

Pope rolled to lay on her back before grabbing Jesse's hand and guiding it down between her legs. Jesse probed tentatively, admiring how wet Pope was for her. She spread Pope's legs, feeling around, realizing she knew exactly what to do, because she'd done it to herself many times. Pope's clit was hard beneath her finger and she began to stroke it, rubbing vigorously around the spot as Pope moaned and writhed.

It wasn't enough, not for her. Now she was in the moment, she wanted to thrust her fingers inside Pope. She sat up, crawling over to kneel between Pope's spread legs. She thumbed Pope's clit, rubbing circles as she gently probed her hole with the middle finger of her right hand.

"Yes… fuck me, Jesse!" Jesse slowly moved in and out, adding her index finger to the mix and moving faster as she built up a rhythm. Pope almost screamed as she came, clamping down on Jesse's fingers as she spasmed against the mattress.

"Holy shit," Jesse said, pulling her slick fingers free. She lay back down beside Pope. "That was intense."

"That's quite a compliment, coming from you," Pope said.

The door opened. Jesse sat bolt upright. "You gotta be kidding me." She grabbed her clothes off the floor and sped to the door, ushering Pope through before it could close and trap them again.

There, on the front desk, was a set of keys. Jesse stepped forward and swiped them up. She turned around to see Agent Wilson lying on the ground, her neck snapped at an odd angle. The Holy Toaster sat in the middle of the floor, its stainless steel hull glinting maliciously in the motel's soft light. Burnt toast was jammed in it, making it buzz.

"She's dead," Pope confirmed, checking her pulse. She stood back up and proceeded to put her clothes back on. Jesse did the same, pulling on her leather jacket before eyeing the toaster. She leaned down next to it, placing her hands on the item. Polaris surged forth, cleansing the item and the toast popped out, any image that might have been on it burnt beyond recognition.

"It's pacified for now," Jesse said. "We need to get it back to Containment as soon as we can." She picked up the toaster, marching to the door with the black triangle on it.

"Do you suppose Agent Wilson came back for us, or did we do what the Oceanview wanted us to do?" Pope asked, her eyes wide in the gloom.

Jesse shook her head and smiled. "I'm not sure. We'll have to research this matter more thoroughly… back at the Bureau." She unlocked the black pyramid door and stepped into the room. She grabbed the lightcord with the toaster tucked under her arm. Pope flashed her a smile as she placed her hand over Jesse's.

_One. Two. Three._

And there they were, back in the Bureau. Back home. Langston surged forward and snatched the Holy Toaster, eager to get it back down to Containment. Jesse wasn't sad to see it go. The killer toaster had taken yet another agent, and they could barely afford to lose manpower at this point. They walked to a nearby office, where Jesse leaned up against a window as Pope sat down at a computer terminal to file her official report. Jesse hoped she'd leave out the parts about their tryst—or redact them, at least. No doubt the Board knew, but she didn't want to invite disaster by letting the whole building in on their relationship.

"You all right?" Pope asked.

"Yeah. Just thinking about Agent Wilson. We need better security around here. We can't have people wandering off with Altered Items." Jesse sat down on the edge of a desk, swinging her legs. "The Oceanview Motel. Not where I imagined having my first time, but…"

"Um, Jesse?" Pope continued typing into an antiquated command line that belonged in the 1980s. "I'm inside the Bureau employee records. I was going to mark Agent Wilson as deceased, but…"

"But?" Jesse walked over to the terminal and looked over Pope's shoulder.

"But we don't _have_ an Agent Wilson. Nobody by that name works at the Bureau." Pope looked up at Jesse with an expression that was equal parts horror and curiosity.

"Someone wanted us at the Oceanview Motel together. They wanted us to—" Jesse cut herself off. Could it be the Board had decided Jesse Faden needed to get laid? She hoped that wasn't a Hotline call she'd have to endure. _We thought you could use some Pleasure/Joy._

Whoever it was, Jesse decided she was better off not knowing. Some mysteries were better left unsolved.

"Come on, Emily. Let's get back up to Executive. "I still haven't slept, and neither have you."

"Is that an offer?" Pope smirked.

Jesse placed her hands on her hips. "Would you rather it be an order?"

"Either way, I'm happy to comply," Pope said. She offered out her hand to Jesse. "Let's go upstairs, Director Faden. Though I can't guarantee you'll get much sleep."

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly I write DBH and Judgment stuff but I'm happy to interact over on Twitter @landale!


End file.
